The Other Boleyn Girl

The Other Boleyn Girl is one of my all time favourite books. It tells the story of the rise and fall of Queen Katherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn through the eyes of Anne’s younger sister and the King’s former mistress, Mary.

Unlike most historical fiction, the language in the Other Boleyn Girl is easy to read but not stupid. The setting, the court of King Henry VIII, is rich and detailed. It is all too easy to become absorbed into the world which Gregory describes.

My favourite part of this book was the characters themselves. Each character is so vivid. At times I did not know whether I wanted to slap Anne or give her a hug. The sexist attitude of the men at the court is infuriating for the modern teenage girl to read, the double standards sickening, but it adds to the realism and believability of the story.

I loved this book so much that I stayed up all night reading it, not stopping till I was finished. Not very many books have ever made me cry but The Other Boleyn Girl brought me to tears.

An Abundance of Katherines

Title: An Abundance of Katherines

Author: John Green

I.S.B.N.: 978-0525476887

I bought this book when I was on Florida earlier this year. I’d seen it on teenreads.com’s must read list and had heard it praised on the podcast Smart Mouths. Though I enjoyed this book, I wanted to like it much more than I actually did.

An Abundance of Katherine’s focus’s around the life of Colin Singleton a child prodigy who has dated, and been dumped by nineteen girls named Katherine. Depressed after Katherine XIX he and his best friend Hassan decide to go on a road trip together before Colin heads of to University in the autumn. The road trip quickly comes to a close when they stop in a little town called Gutshot, Tennessee.

The characters in this story, while not always likeable, are portrayed realistically. One of my favourite things about the book was Colin’s love of anagramming. Try it, it’s harder than you think, especially if like Colin you insist on them being grammatically correct. This is an intelligent novel written for intelligent teens. John Green did not underestimate the intelligence of his audience like many other YA authors.

Rating: 6/10